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11/05/2014

The NFL can't figure out a way to land a team in the second-biggest market in the United States - Los Angeles - and rather than simply forcing the Jacksonville Jaguars out of North Florida to SoCal it keeps giving Londoners a game it could take or leave.

The NFL London series continues, this time with our beloved Dallas Cowboys playing the Jaguars. The team is across the pond, and apparently the British press does not care a lick. From afar, this feels like an exhibition game between Man U and FC Barcelona played in Chicago, Dallas or New York - the stadium will be packed, but the interest in the game outside of the actual venue in that city is minimal.

The Cowboys, and owner Jerry Jones, may be able to create headlines and be relevant by waking up in the morning here in the states, but overseas the impact appears shockingly minimal.

To read the news organizations that cover the greater London area, this game is not even going on.

On the front webpage of the London Evening Standard,there is no headline about the Dallas Cowboys or Jacksonville Jaguars.

On the front webpage of the The Times sport's section, there are approximately headlines for 50 stories and links. Not one of them about the Cowboys, Jaguars or the NFL.

On the front webpage of the Telegraph sport's section, there are headlines and links to stories about The English Premier League, F1 racing, tennis, rugby, the All Blacks, cycling ... the only mention of American Football is the Adrian Peterson plea agreement made yesterday in a Houston court.

Wembley Stadium will be full on Sunday when the Cowboys play the Jaguars, and the NFL will continue to try to expand its footprint in the UK, as well as Toronto, with these types of games but the idea of adding a team in London over the LA doesn't make much sense.

10/01/2014

DALLAS, Texas - Dallas Mavericks coach Rick Carlisle joked Tyson Chandler is the most popular one-year player in the history of any franchise.

Chandler has played for five different teams in 13 NBA seasons, yet that one year he played with the Mavericks - 2010-'11 - is the one that made him a Mav for life.

"I spent one year here and everybody equates my career to being here," he said at Mavs' media day this week. "Even guys around the league (will ask), 'How many years did you play in Dallas?' And I'll say one. And they say, 'What?' Everybody thinks I was here four, five or six years. It was one really long, incredible year. I am definitely tied here and it's a great thing that I am."

Chandler, whom the Mavs acquired in the offseason in a trade with the New York Knicks, is back for the final year of his contract.

The first time he came here little was expected of Chandler. He was coming off another injury plagued season, then with the Charlotte Bobcats.

"I don't think anybody knew what to expect the first time around," he said. "Clearly this time around, having success and winning a championship, expectations are a little bit different."

His length, energy, activity and ability to change shots should improve the Mavs' defense immediately. This team has not been strong defensively on the perimeter, or at the rim, since he left. Chandler changes that, when he plays.

If there is any drawback to Chandler, or concern, is that he remains a guy who simply can't stay healthy. He has never played a full 82-game season, in the past two years he has been limited to 66 and 55 games, respectively.

In his one year with the Mavs, he played 74 games but did not miss a playoff game. I asked him if the "injury prone" label was fair.

"Uhh ... you know, I don't know. I've had injuries in my career. I guess you could throw that out there," he said. "Whether it's fair or not, it's not for me to honestly care about. I go day by day trying to perform to the best of my capabilities. And from there you never know what happens."

Carlisle has said managing Chandler's minutes - somewhere under 30 a night - is a priority. The Mavs do not expect him to play 82 games - they hope in the 70s - but a full playoff run will makeup for any regular season game he misses.

09/02/2014

Veteran NFL quarterback Kyle Orton was so sick and tired of the NFL that he retired long enough to make sure he missed offseason workouts, offseason practices, minicamp and training camp. Only then did his unbridled love for the game bring him back in time to make sure he did not miss the checks of Week 1.

Here is a picture from the #BuffaloBills capturing Orton at what he loves doing more than anything else the NFL has to offer - signing contracts.

This is some of the most brilliant money management ever recorded.

In 2012, Orton signed a three-year, $10.5 million deal with the Cowboys, which included a $5 million bonus. In two seasons with the team, Orton started one game and attempted a total of 61 passes. His one start was the regular-season finale against the Eagles in 2013 where he threw for 358 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. The Cowboys had a chance to win the game late, but Orton's pick sealed another 8-8, playoff-less season.

After the season, Orton reportedly was going to retire. The Cowboys said fine, just be sure to return $3.4 million of the bonus on your way out the door. Orton did not play, and was fined $70,000 for missing minicamp. No matter, the Cowboys eventually blinked and cut Orton to make room for Brandon Weeden.

Orton kept all of the money, and now he is making good money to watch E.J. Manuel play.

On his weekly radio appearance on New School on 105.3 The Fan, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said he was not surprised Orton is still playing.

"Well, it really didn’t surprise me because right when we started to camp, Kyle basically came to Dallas and expressed interest in playing," Jerry said on the show. "We had decided to go in a different direction. We liked everything that Weeden was doing, so it gave us a good chance to take a player that’s got a chance to help us many years into the future and develop him as the second quarterback.

“We thought that getting Weeden some experience that you could have him where Kyle Orton is pretty quick. That’s not taking anything away from Kyle as much as it is giving Weeden a big plus.”

Brett Favre used to do this all the time, the difference being Favre actually played rather than watched the game. Only 31, Orton has had second thoughts about retiring as he has returned to the game he loves so much.

Because the city of Los Angeles cannot get its stuff together to build a stadium to attract a franchise, it has left what few teams that actually "need" a new home scrambling to find a desperate city to use as leverage. San Antonio has to know it's getting played.

Jerry Jones is powerful enough that even in death he would stop any franchise from making San Antonio it's home. As far as Jerry Jones sees it, San Antonio is his, and no string of playoff-less seasons will ever stop that.

When the New Orleans Saints briefly re-located to San Antonio in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, there were all sorts of speculation and reports that team owner Tom Benson wanted to move to the Alamo Sucker City That would have meant three NFL teams in Texas, and zero in Los Angeles.

While Jerry smiled and said he would be fine with an NFL team in S.A., he never meant it. Jerry wants a team in Los Angeles, and not another franchise 220 miles down the road that could potentially eat in his market. How the NFL is this big, this powerful and this profitable without a team in this nation's second largest market speaks to the encompassing popularity of the league.

At the time, Jerry gleefully went along with the NFL's plan to dump money into the aging Superdome as part of the plan to rebuild New Orleans. Secretly, however, both he and other powerful NFL execs fully expected the plan to fail, and that the team would move to L.A.

But the Saints, thanks to head coach Sean Payton and QB Drew Brees, actually "got good", won a Super Bowl, and now are one of the league's most successful franchises. Good teams don't move.

Meanwhile, just in case Oakland is not serious about this spending, the Raiders show a little flesh to the city of San Antonio with the idea that maybe - just maybe - they will get lucky. Don't worry, Jerry will never allow S.A. to get that lucky.

07/29/2014

ARLINGTON, Texas - Part of a moonlighting gig with New School on 105.3 The Fan has allowed my alter ego - Mark Ingles - to interview some of the bigger names in sports/pop culture for a segment I call, "Mark Ingles' I on Sports".

The New York Yankees are in town, which provides the perfect chance to catch up with former Rangers pitcher Brandon McCarthy. Two years ago with the Athletics, McCarthy took a line drive off the head.

ARLINGTON, Texas - For trivia freaks: Derek Jeter's first game against the Rangers at the Ballpark was April 6, 1996. He was 0-for-2 with two walks and a run in a 4-2 loss. The Rangers swept the three-game series, and Jeter finished with one hit in eight at bats. The trajectory of both Jeter and the Yankees improved dramatically since then.

"I always liked coming to Texas," Jeter told us media scum on Monday at the Ballpark in his final appearance at the Ballpark ... unless the Rangers play the Yankees in the playoffs.

Can you blame him?

According to www.baseballreference.com, Jeter has played in 147 career games against the Rangers, and is batting .328 with 33 doubles, 4 triples, 24 home runs and 90 RBI.

In Jeter's career at the Ballpark in Arlington, Jeter is batting .332 with 18 doubles, three triples, 10 home runs and 40 RBI.

Of course, the Rangers can feel better knowing Jeter this against every other team.

Jeter was asked Monday what he remembers most about playing the Rangers and he went with the safe, "The playoffs, earlier in my career and a few years ago."

1996: Yankees 3-1 over Rangers in ALDSJeter was 7-for-17 with two runs, 1 double

1998: Yankees 3-0 over Rangers in ALDSJeter was 1-for-9 with two walks

07/01/2014

NBA free agency has begun, which means it actually started - wink/wink - a few weeks ago, and Mark Cuban is once again Captain Ahab, captain of the S.S. Please Sign Here.

For the third time in as many offseasons, Cuban is betting on his Shark Tank charm - and Broadcast.com funded wallet - that he can land the "big fish" in NBA free agency.

Didn't quite work out in 2012 for Deron Williams. Or 2013 for Chris Paul, or Dwight Howard.

But in 2014, this time, the plan will work for LeBron James or Carmelo Anthony. Or Chris Bosh. Or Dwyane Wade.

(Yes, Dirk Nowitzki is a free agent, but he is not going anywhere.)

Since the NBA and the NBA player's union brokered a new contract in 2011, the Mavs have embraced the plan to go after the big name veteran free agent, and it has resulted in the following players who have signed with the team since '11:

Staying with the trite fishing analogies, the Mavs free agent additions looks like a bucket of cod and minnows.

But law of averages says, eventually, the Mavs are going to land one of the free big fish in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, etc.

LeBron is not coming here. Neither is Bosh. Nor is Wade. The best chance at a big fish name is 'Melo, who reportedly is visiting Chicago, Dallas and Houston about possibly leaving New York to join his third NBA team.

Catching Melo, while plausible, even feels like a dream, leaving the Mavs once again to hope they can add a second-tier FA the way they did Monta Ellis, who played like a top-tier player. The Mavs signed Ellis last year to a three-year, $25 million deal and he exceeded all expectations.

The more likely option is the team will go the Jose Calderon route; the Mavs added Calderon last year when they gave him a four-year contract. He was a nice player, but not worth the four years. The Mavs unloaded Calderon recently as part of the Tyson Chandler trade.

The Calderon route will result in the Mavs adding a nice player but giving him a four-year contract that is one season too many. This summer, that means Luol Deng, Chandler Parsons or (gulp) Pau Gasol.

Cuban is not settling yet, and still has his Captain Ahab harpoon believing that, eventually, he will land his big fish.

A team that has not made the playoffs since 2009 remain the darlings of the National Football League - they will play the prime time game five times in 2014. Just imagine if this team was any bleeping good how often kickoffs would be at 7:30 p.m., Jerry Standard Time.

Only six of their 16 games are scheduled for the dreaded "this game will stink" noon kickoff. Everything else is a kickoff of destination, of interest.

The best news for the Cowboys is that this schedule, unlike last season, is not loaded with a collection of quarterbacks who will rewrite the record book against the Cowboys' 39th-ranked defense.

02/21/2014

Since it is the time of the NFL Combine, this is the perfect opportunity to "review" the trailer for the upcoming big-budget Hollywood flick starring Kevin Costner, "Draft Day". The NFL signed off on this, you can bet this will be an effective commercial for NFL football when the film hits theatres on April 11, about one month prior to the NFL draft.

This film will not be Oliver Stone's over-the-top "Any Given Sunday".

Costner plays the GM of the Cleveland Browns, Sonny Weaver Jr., and he is trying to acquire the No. 1 pick in the draft because he wants to make the Browns into a winner. Perhaps this will have a similar impact on the Browns the way the film Major League did for the Indians.

Director Ivan Reitman has frequented Dallas Cowboys training camp in Oxnard, California before and chatted with Jerry Jones. So, yes, there is a Cowboys reference in here. And, yes, it is flattering.

Costner is in a heated exchange with Browns coach Vince Penn, played by Denis Leary:

Sonny Weaver Jr.: Your job is to coach the team I give you; they do it different in Dallas?Vince Penn: Yeah, they do. They win. A lot.

02/12/2014

Other than the watching Tanith Belbin talk about ... anything, and watching Russian ice dancer Elena Ilinykh (pictured) skate around, the highlight of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi has to be NBC broadcasters Johnny Weir and Tara Linpinski.

Why NBC has not made these two the prime time pair is a mystery. Weir is so out there not only with his opinions and outfits he has made for some of the most genius TV of an event that is all about the idiot box.

Seldom has a broadcaster been as comfortable in his own skin as Weir, which is his brilliance - he does not care, which makes him hilarious to watch. Watching Al Michaels interview Lipinski and Weir was great theater - Michaels visibly looked uncomfortable asking Weir about his latest outfit, some insane pink number that nearly broke a TV screen.

But figure skating is Weir's thing, his expertise. After Sochi, he needs to branch out to other sports. If a network really wants to shake up a dull Texans at Jaguars, or Bucks v. Raptors, Royals/Tigers or Sharks/Coyotes midseason telecast, but Weir in the booth.

His outfits alone would be more interesting than some of the games he's calling.

Networks are continually trying to enliven a regular season broadcast that only the hard core fans, the bored, or the degenerate gamblers watch; Weir analzying NHL/MLB/NBA/NFL action would make for must-see TV. Hell, a Lipinski/Weir duo calling an NBA game would be better than half the junk the league offers in February anyway.

Give him a crash course in Obvious Sports Analysis, and hand him a cheat sheet that reads: "A field goal does them no good here, Dan!" or, "They need to get the ball to LeBron," "You don't want to give up a walk here," and "That's a bad goal."

You can train a donkey to do that. What Weir does you can't train, and he would bring to a sports telecast outside of figure skating would be brilliant, train wreck tv.